Northumberland Schools Achieve ‘Best Ever’ Ofsted Ratings

A county council has announced that the Ofsted rankings for its schools are “the best they’ve ever been”. In 2013, a critical report highlighted that an excessive number of schools in Northumberland were receiving poor evaluations from inspectors, leading to the establishment of a school improvement team. Guy Renner-Thompson, the Conservative cabinet member for education, credits this team with “turning the situation around”. Labour leader Scott Dickinson acknowledged that improved Ofsted results were “good news”, but added that this was “mostly due to the hard work of the schools themselves”. According to a report set to be presented to the council’s family and children’s services overview and scrutiny committee, Northumberland’s schools now rank above both the regional and national averages in Ofsted assessments. “It reflects years of hard work and it’s the first time in memory there are no inadequate schools in the county,” Renner-Thompson stated. The school improvement team consists of former headteachers who offer support to schools and assist them in preparing for Ofsted inspections. Furthermore, a program is in place to support the mental health of headteachers. Since 2022, 72 headteachers have received assistance, with one describing the initiative as “career-saving”. “We have challenging times ahead,” Renner-Thompson added, “Because we do have falling numbers of children but we will try and keep schools open”. He also mentioned that recruiting teachers “remains a challenge”. Dickinson indicated that Labour welcomed the improvement but asserted: “The council has little, if anything to do with how schools perform.” He continued, “In reality, it’s down to the extraordinary hard work of teachers and heads and an army of volunteers, like school governors, who give their time for free.”